Ship-salvaging apparatus



H.D.DEAM. SHIP SALVAGING APPARATUS. APPLICATION FILED DEC-I2, I918.

1,398,5 1 I. Patented N0v.'.29, 1921.

2 SHEETS--SHEET H. D. DEAM.

SHIP SALVAGING APPARATUS.

APPLICATION FILED 056.12, 1918.

1,398,541 Patented Nov. 29, 1921.

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HENRY n. BEAM, or BENTON HARBOR, Mronrea'n, ASSIGNOR OE-VONE-I-IALF TOFRED J. PETROVICS, or CHICAGO, IL INOIS.

SHIP-SALVAGILNG APPARATUS.

Specification of Letters Eatent.

Patented Nov. 29, 1921.

Application filed December 12, 1918; Serial No. 266,374;

This invention relates to the salvaging of boats, and particularly tothe salvaging of boats which are sunk in deep water, or which areotherwise difficult ofaccess, or which, for any reason are diflicult toelevate to the surface of the water. The object of the invention is toprovide suitable apparatus for this purpose, and particularly to providemeans for elevating the boats without injury either to the boatsthemselves or'to the apgaratus. 1 f the accompanying drawings Figure 11s a diagram indicating the general arrangement of the elevating barges,which 1 use in carrying out my invention. Fig. 2 is an enlarged planview of one of the barges showing more or less diagrammatically the ar-'rangement of the details. Fig. 3 shows enlarged and still more in detailthe arrangement of one of the elevating units used on the barge. Fig. 4:is an enlarged view of the power system of the barge. Fig. 5 is asectional view of one ofthe steam engines of the system including thereversing mechanism. And Fig. 6 is a diagrammatic View of the apparatusin operation elevating a boat.

Great difficulty has been encountered in raising sunken boats,especially large boats sunk in deep water, due to the fact that inraising such boats, it is necessary to" attach,

thereto a large numberof elevating means such as cables passing aroundthe hull of the boat or attached to various grappling means connectedwith the'hull; and very serious strains are put upon the boat, sometimesresulting in injury to the extent of breaking the boat'in two; alsoabnormal strains often occur on certain of the cables or grapplingmeans, causing them to break loose; and this throws additional strainson the re mainder of the elevating means, which sometimes results intheboat breaking entirely away and sinking again to the bottom.

To overcome these and other difficulties I provide various means. In thefirst place the general system which is used in elevating the boatscomprises a large number of comparatively small barges rather than afewlarge barges, so that not only suficient buoyancy ma be obtained by thenumber of V bargesus'ed, ut also the strain on the various elevatingcables may be more easily dis tributed and made uniform it beingapparent that the total strain upon each of the small barges isnecessarily limited to a much narrower range than would be the case ifbut a small number of large barges were used. In this instance,toillustrate my invention, I have shown in Fig. 1 six barges 32 in use;

but itis to be understood that a much larger number of barges could bearranged for, each being somewhat similar to the ones described herein.1 f Each of the barges 32, is equipped with suitable apparatus for thework, such as.v

would be apparent to anybody skilled in the art; and each is alsoprovided with a plurality of hoisting units-10, Fig. 3, comprising steamengines 11 operating a winding drum 12 through suitable gearing,including a worm 13 and a wormwheel 14:, at a very slow rate. Adjacenteach of these units is ahoisting shaft 15 extending through the bottomof the boat and upward to near the upper deck. The purpose of the shafts15 1S to allow the operators to-more conveniently manipulate the liftingcables and to .throw'the downward pull on-the barges on the centerthereof to avoid any tendency to tip over the barges.

'Any suitable block and tackle system may be used; I prefer a cable 16,with one end fixed to the sheave frame 17,and thence passing upwardlyover "the sheave 18, r0 tatably mounted over the upper end of the shaft,and thence down-around the movable sheave 19, and thence upwardly overanother sheave rotatably mounted over the upper end of the shaft, andthence to the drum 1%.

In use, a cable 20, Fig. '6, fixedto a hook-21, T

or other suitable means connect-edto the hull ice of the sunken boat 23,passes upwardly and Other blocks and tackles iio The system ashereinabove described is similar to the system more fully described inPatent No. 1,312,473, granted to me Aug. '5, 1919. V

The power system which I prefer comprises a steam power plant in eachbarge consisting of a boiler 25 for generatlng steam and a plurality ofengines 11, two engines being provided for each of the operating units.In order to equalize the power applied to, and the loads on the variouselevating units I provide similar engines having the same power capacityand speed, and connect the engines in parallel to the same steam main27; so all of the engines wlll have equal steam pressure, irrespectiveof any variations in pressure in the steam mam. And for similar reasonsthe steam pressure is maintained as nearly uniform in all of the mainsof the various barges. In order to more fully control the variouselevating units employed one of the barges is selected as thecontrolling barge,'and signal rece ving stations are provided in eachbarge, and each station is connected, by means of cables 30, with thesignaling station 31 of the controlling barge. It being understood thatany of the barges may be used for the controlling 1 barge. By thisarrangement the chief operator located at the signahng statlon 31 1s 7able to direct operations on each of the other barges, so that all ofthe elevating means in the various barges will be operated in unison tobring about the one common result, the proper manipulation of the sunkenboat.

The various units in each barge are operated simultaneously by anassistant operator thereon by means of a general steam control valve 35.This control valve is so arranged as to start or stop, simultaneouslyall of the engines in the barge. The engines are all reversible and eachelevating unit comprises two engine cylinders with their piston rodsconnected to the same shaft at 90 from each other, so as toneutralizedead centers. By this arrangement the engines may be all operated.simultaneously from one point by operating the master steam controlvalve, and, when desired, operating the following described reversiblemechanism. 7

Any suitable means may be provided for reversing the engines, I prefer alink reversing mechanism for each elevating unit, each mechanism to beoperated by a rotatableshaft 40, which extends lengthwise of the bargeand passes to a position near the master control valve, so as to beoperated by the engineer in charge at the same time that the controlvalve is operated. The shaft has an arm 41 by which it may be operatedby the. engineer, and arms 42 are fixed to the shaft at suitable pointsthereon to operate the reversing mechanism of the different engines. Themechanism which I prefer for reversing each engine, comprises a linlr43, which is of the nature of a floating lever, having a movable fulcrum44 fixed to an arm 45 pivoted, by a fixed pivot 46, to the framework ofthe engine, and connected, by means of a-link 47, to the operating arm42 fixed to the shaft 40. As the shaft 40 is rotated in the properdirection the fulcrum 44 is shifted from one end of the slot 48 to theother. Pivoted to the lever 43 is a connecting rod 49, which is arrangedto operate the slide valve 50; and also pivoted to one end of the lever43 is an eccentric rod 51, which is suitably connected to the eccentric52 of the engine shaft 53.

A consideration of this mechanism will show that, when the fulcrum 44 israised, as shown in Fig. 5, the link 43 will act as a second classlever, and the'reciprocating movement of the rod 49 will besubstantially one-half as much as the reciprocating movement of the rod51. lVhen the fulcrum 44 is shifted to the lower end of the slot 48, tothe position indicated by the dotted line 54, the link 43 will act as afirst-class lever, and, the reciprocating movement of the rod 49 willremain substantially one-half as great as the reciprocating movementofthe rod 51. On the other'hand whenthe fulcrum is in the raisedposition the movement of the two rodswill be in the same direction, butwhen the fulcrum is in the lower position the movement of the rods willbe in opposite directions; so that when it is desired to reverse theengines it is necessary 7 gines, it being understood that all of theengines inthe barge are reversible by'rotating theshaft 40, the lever 43is connected to the valve 50 by means of a rotary spindle 55 passingthrough the stufling box 56 in the hood 57 ofthe steam chest 58 of theengine. By means of this rotating spindlethe force required to operatethe slide valve is materially reduced, as the friction in the stuffingbox to be overcome for a given movement of the valve 50 is much lesswith the rotating spindle than it'would be with'an ordinaryreciprocating rod.

The connection between the-rod 49 and the valve 50 includes an arm 60fixed to the spindle 55 outside of the hood 57 and is connected to theslide valve by means of the link 62. By the use of an arm 61 materiallylonger than the arm 60, the movement of the valve 50 is materiallygreater than the movement of the connecting rod 49, and the relativemovement of these members can be adjusted by adjusting the relativelengths of the arms 60 and 61, so as to.

arrange for any desired eccentric, or for any length of lever arms ofthe floating lever a3. In this connection it is to be understood thatthe lever arms may be any desired relative lengths provided only thatthe relative movements of the rods 49 and 51 remain unchanged when thefulcrum is shifted from one end of the slotto the other. In order toprevent displacement of the lever 4.3 any suitable means may be used. Iprefer for a the purpose the support 63, pivoted to the frame of theengine 64 coaxially with the fulcrum when raised, and also pivoted tothe lower end of the lever 43. And I prefer to have the engines rotatingthe shaft in the direction to elevate when the fulcrum is raised, andhence is coaxial with the upper pivot of the support 6. 7

It will be seen that, bythe use of a plurality of barges and a pluralityof elevating systems in each barge, as hereinabove set forth,substantially simultaneous control is 7 provided for all of theelevating means, and

substantially uniform force may be applied to the elevating cables.

In operation, the boat is grappled in any suitable manner, such as isfully described in my said copending application. The method set forthin said copending application is then carried out substantially in themanner set forth; that is the boat is very slowly, carefully anduniformly pulled free from the ground. Stronger grappling means, ifnecessary, are then provided; and the boat is then lifted more rapidly,uniform tension being maintained on the various cables so as to avoidundue straining of the boat or breakingof any of the elevating elements.The boat, if more or less inverted, is turned right side up whenvsuspended by the apparatus. This is accomplished by raising one side bydriving forwardly the engines of the set of barges controlling thatside, and, if necessary, by lowering the other side by reversing theengines of the barges controlling that side. By the various meansdescribed, complete control of the boat is obtained during all of theseoperations, so that the danger of injuring the boat or the elevatingmeans is eliminated, it being well understood that the raising of largeboats, especially when inverted and along distance under the surface ofthe water, is an extremely difficult operation, and very frequentlyresults in complete failure or especially serious injury to the boatitself, or to the elevating means.

I claim as my lnventlonz 1. in a boat salvaging system, a plurality ofelevatlng barges, a plurality of elevating one of said barges to each ofthe other barges,

a plurality of devices adapted to be connected to a sunken vessel, anelevating drum operatively connected with each of said engines to berotated continuously as the engine is operated, and cables respectivelyconnecting said devices with said drum, whereby said devices whenconnected to a sunken vessel may be pulled upwardly continuously andwith uniform forces. v

2. In a boat salvaging system, a plurality of elevating barges, aplurality of elevating engines in each barge, all of the engines in allof. the barges being substantially similar, means for supplying auniform amount of steam at substantially the same pressure to.

allof the engines in any one of the barges, means for simultaneouslysignaling from one of said barges to each of the other barges,

in one of said barges, said reversing means comprising a rotatable rodpassing from the means for supplying the steamto each of said engines,with rotating means fixed thereto adjacent said steamsupplying means,said rod being operatively connectedto each ofsaid engines.

3. In a boat salvaging system a plurality of elevating barges, aplurality of similar elevating" engines in each of said barges,

means for passing steam in substantially uniform amounts and'pressuresto each of the engines in said barges, devices adapted to be connectedwith a sunken vessel, a cable connected with each of said devices, andoperating means connecting said cables with said engines for producing acontinuous force on said cables as said engines operate, the magnitudeef all of the forces being substantially the same.

in testimony whereor, I hereunto set my hand.

. 'HENRY D.

